Albert Jay Nock Up and Coming?

I predict that Albert Jay Nock will make a come back. That is his ideas and writings will, since he himself died in 1945. Some will say that his ideas never went anywhere; there are clubs and newsletters and probably blogs devoted to him. He was a journalist and author. The main thrust of his beliefs was that the state was the cause of all of our problems. He thought that complete economic freedom would lead to political and social and all other genres of freedom. (As opposed to socialist writers, who believed pretty much the opposite.) He said that the state claimed and practiced a monopoly on crime. Occasionally it would lull us into complacency by granting and guaranteeing a few "rights." Maybe four or five or ten. Actually, what we should have is no state and all rights and freedoms. This is certainly anarchy and he is indeed a hero of the anarchist movement. He would probably say that anarchy is a statist concept. Here is a link to a short article:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker23.html

This is a Paragraph from the Wikopedia article:

"During the 1930s, Nock was one of the most consistent critics of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs. In Our Enemy, the State, Nock argued that the New Deal was merely a pretext for the federal government to increase its control over society. He was dismayed that the president had gathered unprecedented power in his own hands and called this development an out-and-out coup d'etat. Nock criticized those who believed that the new regimentation of the economy was temporary, arguing that it would prove a permanent shift. He believed that the inflationary monetary policy of the Republican administrations of the 1920s were responsible for the onset of the Great Depression, and that the New Deal was responsible for perpetuating it."

It is his insight regarding the Great Depression that might bring about his revival. It seems obvious that the above paragraph is a pretty good summary of our current economic situation.

Nock's writings about money, business cycles, and government spending almost mirror those of von Mises and other "liberals." I doubt Nock had an academic economic background but he was well schooled in the classics and self-educated in everything else. His writing about social security insurance could be used to help understand the current proposals for government health insurance:
"What such schemes actually come to is that the workman pays his own share outright; he pays the employer's share in the enhanced price of commodities; and he pays the government's share in taxation. He pays the whole bill; and when one counts in the unconscionably swollen costs of bureaucratic brokerage and paperasserie, one sees that what the workman-beneficiary gets out of the arrangement is about the most expensive form of insurance that could be devised consistently with keeping its promoters out of gaol."

He also predicted the rise of Obama-like figures (of which BHO was by no means the first):

"It certainly took no great perspicacity to see that these two measures [income tax and popular election of senators] would straightway ease our political systems into collectivism as soon as some Eubulus, some mass-man overgifted with sagacity, should maneuver himself into popular leadership; and in the nature of things, this would not be long."

Regarding patriotism, he said, "As a general principle, I should put it that a man's country is where the things he loves are most respected." Since he also said, "All I ever asked of life was the freedom to think and say exactly what I pleased, when I pleased, and as I pleased. I have always had that freedom," I would say that America was his country. Let's hope we can keep it a place where freedom is most respected.